Many people talk to their plants. But what if those plants were able to talk back?

That’s the premise behind Botanicalls, a project to enable communications between plants and people. A sensor network provides the flora the ability to call and text people to request assistance, such as “I need water,” or “Not sure if it was you, but someone gave me a drink—I feel great!”

It’s a fascinating, precocious venture, one featured on the TODAY show on May 7 as part of a discussion about home technologies. It’s also a window into the work of Kati London, one of the driving forces behind Botanicalls and the newest member of FUSE Labs at Microsoft Research.

The team’s successes have been many, and among the most notable have been SenseCam—a wearable camera that takes photos automatically, thereby enabling users to review a series of snapshots and recall events as they transpired—and .NET Gadgeteer, a rapid prototyping platform for small electronic gadgets and embedded hardware devices.